Itajaí is a Brazilian municipality in the state of Santa Catarina.
The climate in Itajaí is humid in winter and dry in summer. In summer temperatures can reach 40 °C (Temperature reached in 2000) and during the winter they can get as low as 5 °C. It is very rare to get temperatures outside this range. There are reports that the lowest temperature ever recorded in Itajaí was -1 °C in 1975.
Itajaí has many beautiful beaches, among them are the Molhes, Atalaia, Jeremias, Cabeçudas, Morcego, Brava (Angry) Beach and Solidão. One well-known tourist attraction is the Parrot’s Beak, a 6-meter-tall rock in the shape of a Parrot. The city also boasts extensive rural areas and beautiful natural scenery, with a rich heritage of the Portuguese and German immigrants. Itajaí has a píer for passenger vessels, serving the coast of Santa Catarina and used by the customs, which guides ships in by laser. The Marejada, a Portuguese festival of fishing and seafood, is the principal festival of the city, showcasing attractions relative to the ocean and the Azores. Itajaí is also the hub of Nautical Club Marcílio Dias, a sport association for both football (soccer) and competitive rowing.
In 2013 it has been chosen as the arrival point of the Transat Jacques Vabre and it was a stopover for the Volvo Ocean Race in 2012 and 2015.
The city is served by Ministro Victor Konder International Airport located in the adjoining municipality of Navegantes.
Each October, yearly celebrate Marejada carried out in Itajaí from 1987.
Santa Catarina was one of the few states in Brazil that was mostly populated by a settlement program of immigrants coming from almost every European nation in the 1800’s when Brazil had a strong policy of allowing immigrants from Northern Europe to settle in areas of the country that the government at the time deemed in need of settlers; their heritage can be seen in the architecture and the customs of the population of the state.
People of German and Austrian descent make up the largest ethnic group among the population of Santa Catarina, at around 50% – with a considerable portion still speaking the German language. Speakers of Venetian Italian make up the third most spoken mother tongue, after Portuguese and assorted German dialects.
The state’s social indicators are among the best in Latin America, being the Brazilian state with the third highest level of median income, besides exhibiting high levels of education and public health, and one of the lowest rates of illiteracy. Santa Catarina boasts Brazil’s highest average life expectancy and lowest homicide rate in addition to lower levels of corruption. The cities of the state are also considered some of the most livable in the country, enjoying a reputation of being “clean, safe and organized”.
The Atlantic coast of Santa Catarina has many beaches, islands, bays, inlets, and lagoons. The humid tropical Serra do Mar coastal forests cover the narrow coastal zone, which is crossed by numerous short streams from the wooded slopes of the serras.
The central part of the state is home to the Araucaria moist forests, dominated by emergent Brazilian pines (Araucaria angustifolia). The drainage of the plateau is westward to the Paraná River, the rivers being tributaries of the Iguaçu, which forms its northern boundary, and of the Uruguay River, which forms its southern boundary. The semi-deciduous Paraná-Paraíba interior forests occupy the westernmost valleys of the Iguaçu and Uruguay rivers.
The highest point of the state is the Morro da Boa Vista, with an altitude of 1,827 m, and the second highest point is the Morro da Igreja, in the town of Urubici, with an altitude of 1,822 m.
Santa Catarina where over 50% of the population has German, Austrian and Luxembourgish ancestry (the local Hunsrückisch is known as Katharinensisch, East Pomeranian is still spoken in the town of Pomerode and Southern Austro-Bavarian by the Tyrolean population in Treze Tílias) was also the main destination for Danes in Brazil and the state that was sparsely populated and had its shore mainly inhabited by Azoreans in the 18th century (e.g. Laguna born Anita Garibaldi, wife and comrade-in-arms of Italian Unification revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi), also received Italians, French, Swedes, Norwegians, Swiss, Lithuanians and Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Poles, Slovenians, Croatians, Belgians, American Confederates and Spaniards to populate its interior during the 19th century. The town of Brusque founded by Austrian Baron von Schneeburg bringing German families from the Grand Duchy of Baden to settle in the northeast of Santa Catarina, besides receiving additional waves of Italians from the Tyrol–South Tyrol–Trentino Euroregion, Poles and Swedes, was also one of the destinations in the South and Southeast for American Confederate settlers in 1867, differing from São Paulo and Paraná colonies, where the American Confederate presence gave birth to new towns such as Americana in São Paulo. Neighboring towns such as Nova Trento founded in 1875, similarly received subjects from the Austro-Hungarian Empire due the fact that Italian-speaking Tyroleans known as trentinos and Germans from the Kingdom of Prussia, historic Swabia and Baden faced an immense crisis in the agricultural sector caused by the conflicts of the unification of Italy and Germany respectively, that weakened local trade. Istrian Italians under the Austrian Empire rule also fled Istria to settle in Brazil, and a few towns like Nova Veneza, founded in 1891 still have an over 90% Venetian population of which many still speak the Talian dialect. Most Venetians settled after the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866, when Venice, along with the rest of the Veneto, became part of the newly created Kingdom of Italy.